DISQUS

It's interesting and ironic that now I know Gary better than I did, I think the way he promotes the idea that wine can be unpretentious is very inspiring for a marketer. Gary has listened to the great wine audience and explains wines in a way that's simple to understand and fun to watch and listen.

One person's passion can be very puzzling for other people to understand.

That's why it is ironic that I should write a post about Gary's email. I'm very passionate about the marketing concept. I really think that companies should listen to their customers before trying to sell their products. Instead of promoting what a company has to sell, the marketing concept is all about listening to customers, making a better product and selling more of them because the company made a better product.

The marketing concept is why I am very excited about the opportunities social media brings to companies, as a company has the opportunity to listen and engage customers.

When I write about marketing on my blog I usually write about case studies that reflect companies using the marketing concept and those not using it.

thanks Nick I will work on the definition and make it tighter.

Scott, I think as a marketer using social media to listen and interact just makes sense. That's what's amazing about social media, we can talk about product management and customer service issues, customers main concerns, and as a result if a customer has a good experience not only will they be more likely to remain a customer, but a company will probably be able to turn them from an ordinary customer into an evangelist. Plus, you have a crowd of people watching the interaction, which will probably produce more sales.

You hit the nail on the head when you said you were not interested in advertising on social networks. getting involved in social networks is not about advertising, but outreach, dialogue and engagement.

It is simple to buy an ad, a lot more complicated to hire someone to talk with your customers. Glad you are on board with Ford and helping to build the social media engagement industry. It is leaders like you who are helping to build the industry.

Aaron, great review, perhaps you may follow up with an interview with the blogger at safeway, I will put a link on the wiki to this review.

Nice job Scott. Always good to be able to talk directly with customers and the wider social media community.

I think the interview approach is fine, rather than Alan setting up twitter, unless he is really going to make it work.

I was curious about the follow up on the question about personal responsibility on sustainability. Not a fair question in some ways, because that's personal, but I would think people are interested.

Hi Kevin, Good to see you the other day, great interview, hope you do well with the offer.

Great article, focusing on the selfless makes a lot of sense.

Really good post Scott. To me the issue for American car companies is not each other but combating consumer's perceptions about each company's brand. Collaborating on ideas and thoughts on how to use social media just makes sense to me. I think you and Christopher have the most exciting and challenging jobs in social media in the United States, as your companies represent one of the most important manufacturing industries. The nod to GM on their 100th was a very classy thing to do. Congratulations!

Great news Scott, congratulations. I first learned about you when I was working at Backbone Media, and your colleagues at your old agency described you as the chap who was crazy about social media and Sherlock Holmes, sounded like a great combination to me.

I've always thought you were a class act, and congratulate Ford for picking someone who is going to really help take them to the next level with social media.

Very sorry about losing you to Dearborn, but know you will always have plenty of friends here in Boston, should you visit.

I enjoyed reading this article, especially the idea of putting apps into two camps.

I enjoyed reading this article, especially the idea of putting apps into two camps.

congratulations that's wonderful news

Congratulations on the move, how will the move affect your posts here, if any?

I've recently talked to a number of people at several large organizations where the those organizations will respond to customers who write about their organization either negatively or positively. The priority for the organization is the customer rather than say, the influencer. The metric by which the organization measure whether they should contact, is sentiment.

What's your experience Sean?

Did Microsoft use sentiment analysis in finding customers and responding?

David, maybe one way to change the focus and debate is to ask the fellows to discuss some of those other topics once in a while.

thanks for the hat tip Chris. Do you have any old posts that discuss the issue of starting a blog. Curious to see your process, if so?

-What do you think?

I definitely think you are right Chris, to get the most out of social media, two of your core content goals and outreach goals should be product marketing and customer service. More about listening then talking.

I believe this because I've seen a few companies become really successful using blogging and social media. Poster child's were, Macromedia, Microsoft, and now Dell.

-Is there a business application to all this?

As above, product marketing and customer service.

What's really interesting is the process of monitoring. Think about it, if you worked in communications and you spent most of your time promoting and talking about yourself, what would you know? Well getting involved in social media means you have to listen, all of sudden you become much more news savvy about what's going on. That means you can react more quickly to developing stories because you have really been paying attention to the community.

Monitoring will also give you some amazing insights into competitive intelligence.

Why are big companies delving in?

Because customers are talking amongst themselves, and because of search engines, and the way that search works, those conversations between websites mean customers have a competitive advantage in the world of dominating rankings on an industry topics (The Long Tail helps search).

This means those voices are being heard, by other customers, and now by companies. It is becoming a competitive advantage, and depending on the industry, an imperative to dive in.

What will convince businesses to dig in and experiment a bit more?

Customers. More of their peers jumping in. Think of the Geoff Moore model here.

I think twitter has some real social interaction design problems with managing the followers, though I am sure its a matter of using some other tools.

How about managing by location?

John, I think I disagree with you when you say that most business owners have accepted the benefits of business blogging. I think many people are aware of blogging, and especially its growing use by traditional media companies on their websites. I just don't see the adoption numbers. Only about 11% of the fortune 500 are currently blogging, and 20% of the Inc 500. We don't have wider numbers for business in general, but I would suspect it is somewhere between the two, as the Inc 500 consists of a lot of tech companies. And even in the fortune 500 most of the companies blogging are tech or telco related.

John, are you saying that marketing is just about promoting the product you have by getting people to trust you to buy the product?

This might have been one thought you should have kept to yourself, if the above comment is any indication. But hell we do want to know your opinion.

I did think her observation that she was even more connected in this web world than ever before was interesting. Maybe the web puts the ordinary person on an equal footing with celebrities and so when a celebrity dies that loss seems more like losing a friend than some distant star.

hope its not that stomach bug that's been going around.

congratulations on the move Robert. Isn't it great when you get to follow your passion, and do interviews with great people!

I asked a question on linkedin.com about this very subject of authenticity. I believe one of the authors of the book might have answered the question. Here's a synopsis of responses.

-Authenticity comes from your background, learned from parents.

-Authenticity cannot be taught.

-It can be taught, but best taught by those people who have wrestled with their own identity.

-If you tell a good enough story that will be enough to be authentic.

-It's not a matter of just being honest, you also have the expertise to share the customer's perspective, and you have to be relevant. (Good quote from Ryan Turner, "Presence reveals authority. expression demonstrates originality. visibility betrays credibility. experience builds authenticity-- wherever you work, whatever you learn.")

-Marketers need to study marketing to be authentic.

-Failure and learning from failing is authentic.

-Stories are important, they have to be true though, and be able to withstand public scrutiny.

I was wondering which camp are you in? Authenticity can be taught or not?

You are right the marketing is not social media, where we define social media as just a tool. Marketing is really more about strategy. However, as you suggest the social media movement is not just about tools, it is about a way of communicating with people and a community. Now I will concede that most marketers are only thinking about campaigns and tools. The recent report from Forrester Research seems to indicate that. But I think you are missing something here about the marketing concept. A big part of the concept is listening to customers, and enacting what you learn. From that process companies are better able to market their products. In my experience those companies that focus on listening; product development and customer service are usually the companies that receive the most benefits from social media. Macromedia was the company for me that really demonstrated how a company could use listening to use marketing strategy within social media. While Dell's example continues to amaze me.

To me social media, the tools, and the way of communicating finally make it easier, and likely for a generation of business people to actually do marketing as the concept is defined. Though the reality is that the tools were never needed, just the willingness to implement the strategy.